A Million Midnights
by signelchan
Summary: A hypothetical mother. A hypothetical death. A character sketch of a girl with a lot of mysteries.


Mom.

You promised me a life of happiness, a life of getting what I wanted from you. "Who needs a father?" you'd say. "We can do this alone, just you and I."  
Apparently, "you and I" was just "you" in your world. I remember spending every night alone while you were out, getting drunk, getting high, separating yourself from the reality I wanted. Every day, you'd be back, crashing on the floor in front of my room. Did I have a say in your nighttime binges? Of course not, Mom. That was mother time, not mother and daughter time.

When was the time I wanted? It was there, mixed in with the strange men you'd invite over, trying to replace my absent father with their presence. Yeah, so maybe I never knew the man that helped create me, but you didn't have to cover him up. Those guys you brought were too rough, too dirty, too willing to jack you up for anything. They didn't care that your daughter was around to see, hear, know everything that was going on.

Did you ever remember that I was there, cooking your meals after those nasty men were long gone, leaving you a shell of your past self, some even going as far as to implant their dark seeds in you? I never left then. Why would have I left after you said you hated me for being the being that brought this despair on you?

I never realized how deep you were in this demon world until you tried to kill me. I think I was about six at the time. Mom, how could you take a knife to your first child's throat while your other love children all watched? And when I fought back, how could you go after them?

Don't think I didn't watch that, Mom. I saw you kill them. And I know that incident haunted you for the rest of your life. I remember how you rejected men from then on, because you didn't want any more children, for fear of that repeating itself.

My idea of becoming a kunoichi made you hate me all over again, just when we were starting to bond and begin on my list of things I though made a happy life. But, Mom, I wanted to be a kunoichi, not just to protect myself from you. I wanted to expand my horizons. Secretly, I wanted to rid the world of all the people like you, because no child deserves to live like I did.

You hated it. You knew that if I ever gained rank, you would have problems keeping your drinking and drugging a secret. And what did I do, other than tell the first adult that would listen that my mom was a bad parent.

Before they took you away, you made another promise, one that you'd give a million midnights of pleasure for one more moment with me. Well, you never kept up on that, now did you? Every time I visited, you were stoned out of your mind, drinking like it was going out of style, and always half dressed. That was not the kind of moment I wanted with my mom.

I can't believe you actually expected to get away with that, Mom. They tried to clean you up nice and good, but your quest for midnights of pleasure was too great in your mind, and nothing was going to stop you from pleasing yourself. I just wish you could have seen me grow up into the woman I am now.

This wasn't the life I expected you'd live. After all, who wishes their only parent is a crackhead, because they don't want to live a halfway decent life. I never in a million years would have liked that, and now I hope you see it. You could have at least tried to change for my sake, for the sake of those children who you raised like me, for your own sake.

Mom.

Again, I call you that, a single word lost in a memory. I can't literally think you're my mom, because you never acted like one. Yeah, you raised me until I could function at a low level, and then you were off nightly. I took care of your other, murdered, children, not in love, but in necessity. I did not want their deaths to be because of me.

In the end, though, they were. And I hope, wherever they are, they understand that I didn't know you'd go after them next. I thought you loved them just like you had "loved" their dads, just like you had once "loved" mine.

Thanks to your care, I grew up without a last name, without a proper family, without anything to hold on to. I was almost an orphan, and that's what I told people. That's what I will tell people now, since you received the fate you deserved and are now living in the ground.

I cried when I found out you had died. Why? I couldn't just let my mother go, especially since she had promised me the life I wanted. But what life is better to take than the very life you couldn't grasp? I'll take those million midnights, and run them to the stars.

You thought pleasure came from your fake friends. I know it comes from real ones. Love meant something different to you than it does to me. You may have been only twice my age, but I'm the wiser one of us.

Thanks, Mom, for everything.

Love your thankful daughter, Tenten

* * *

A/N: Let's just say I've had this idea floating around since I read my earliest work, _Diary of an Engaged Kunoichi_. No, I'm not advertising it. I'm just telling you that, wow, it's amazing what you can come up with just by looking at pieces from almost four years ago.

I do greatly enjoy fleashing out the character of Tenten. She's such an easy target. And the idea of an alcoholic mom suits her, although a bit overdone. I hope I did that justice. I wish I could take credit for her character, but I cannot. I own nothing other than the idea of a hypothetical mom.

Siggy


End file.
